RYLA (Rotary Youth Leadership Awards) was a huge success! The 28 young participants were so energized on their final day of the 4-day conference as they wanted to go out into the community and use the new leadership skills and friendships they created.
Over the four days, the teens learned about themselves through leadership skills, testing, games, special guest speakers, socializing, and community service work. Within the last hour of the conference, everyone had their moment to share anything they wanted to about the conference. All had positive comments to say, but a repeated message was how much they enjoyed the RYLA training over other leadership courses they have been on. Many were “encouraged” to sign up by their parents as they truly did not want to do it, but they all freely admitted they are so glad they did. They all made lasting friendships and they are eager to get involved with RYLA again next year. They are also interested in helping to start up an Interact club so they can apply their leadership within the local community and hopefully internationally.
In one word, RYLA Cayman was AMAZING! To see some of the posted photos from the conference visit the RYLA Cayman Facebook page https://www.facebook.com/rylacayman.
The Sunrise Leadership team attended the formal dinner on Saturday night at the RYLA conference. Guest speaker Rashad Jones gave an inspiring and motivating after dinner talk to the youngsters and the young at heart in attendance. Four of the attendees were presented with awards on the evening giving them an all expense paid to next year's RYLA in the US. Amongst the winners was Zoe Conolly Basdeo.
After dinner the conference registrants danced the evening away with the counsellors. Sunrise was one of the conference sponsors which was free of charge to all attendees.
Zoë Conolly Basdeo is a Year 11 student at Cayman Prep and High School. With a Montessori foundation, Zoë excels as a student and participates in several extra-curricular activities. She has especially enjoyed the Model United Nations (MUN) programme and recently attended the Yale Model Government Europe session in Budapest, Hungary. She appreciated this opportunity to tackle world problems with others who were willing to discuss and debate difficult topics.
No stranger to difficult topics, as a 7-year-old, Zoë was a community advocate to save the local Ironwood forest. At 12 years of age, under the guidance of local filmmakers, she wrote, produced and directed a public service announcement for the Cayman Islands Crisis Centre. At 13, Zoë spent a summer working with a local artist assisting with an art camp and learning the business side of being an artist, and did so again this summer. At 14, an assignment by her English teacher led her to document Cayman’s social and cultural environment and its impact on her life as a young Caymanian. This essay was the basis for her selection as a TedxSevenMileBeach speaker. Additionally, this summer she was selected to participate in a UWC short program called "Religion In India", which aimed to educate participants about the multitude of religions present in India and their impact on modern society.
Zoë is the daughter of Ms. Marilyn Conolly and Dr. Dax Basdeo, and she aspires to attain an international and multicultural education.
Join us for Membership Month Happy Hour Social on Wednesday, August 26th!
In celebration of Membership Month and with the idea of having fun and fellowship with our current, past and prospective members along with Rotaract, we would like to invite you to a little Hump Day Happy Hour Social!
The event will be held on Wednesday 26th August 2015 at Karoo, Camana Bay 5:30 p.m. to 7: 30 p.m.
And we welcome all Rotarians, Past Rotarians, Rotaractors and friends of Rotary to this Happy Hour social. As we enjoy the end of membership month and the summer vacation in a relaxed evening of networking and fellowship.
Please feel free to invite a prospective member who may want to learn more about Rotary in a casual setting.
We hope to see many of you out there. A sign-up sheet will be circulated at the next meeting but you can also RSVP via email.
Let's have a STRONG showing from our club!
Kind regards,
Stacy
Membership Director 2015-2016
(P.S. If possible, Members please wear your Rotary apparel and/or pins)
Polo Shirts
Because of an overwhelming response for Navy Blue polo shirts, we are going to hold down costs and eliminate the White polo shirtoption.
The "men's" style is a traditional polo while the "women's" style has more of a v-neck layout to the buttons. If you want to change your shirt style, please let me know.
The polo shirts have a traditional embroidered Rotary logo and club name on the front. The cost for each shirt is CI$28.
T-Shirts
The t-shirts come in two designs and two colors. The “island” design will be in blue and the “handprint” design in gray. The cost for each t-shirt is CI$11.
Size Note: Many members order their t-shirts one size larger than the polo shirts as the t-shirts are used in service projects and need a little more "working space."
No payment is needed yet.
You have two options to ensure we can place a large order promptly for as many members as possible.
Option 1) Respond to an upcoming email with sizes and quantities, include your name next to the order to allow Director Patrick to copy and paste. Examples:
The Sunrise Literacy Committee has an action-packed year ahead. September marks the start of a new school year, and what better time for Rotarians the world over to celebrate and raise awareness about literacy and basic education. We will kick-off the month raising awareness about the importance of developing good literacy skills from a young age, and will celebrate International Literacy Day (8th September) with volunteer readings at local schools and dictionary-donations to Year 7 students in local schools.
It is essential to help our children develop good literacy skills whilst at school so that they can make the best of future employment and other opportunities in their adult lives. Low literacy levels drive inequality in a population and have been linked to poverty and higher levels of crime. Throughout September, we will raise awareness and encourage members of our community to get involved, perhaps by becoming a volunteer paired-reader for LIFE(Literacy is for Everyone) for the school year.
LIFE is a charitable organisation (formed by a group of Sunrise Rotarians and Chaired by PP Woody Foster) which seeks to significantly increase literacy levels in the Cayman Islands. LIFE run a number of literacy programmes in the public schools and will be holding its signature corporate fundraiser, the 2015 LIFE Scrabble Scrum on Tuesday 29th September at Abacus, Camana Bay. Corporate teams will go head to head with little more than a Scrabble board, letter tiles and their speedy word-forming skills to hand. Our MC, Rotarian Patrick Kreitlow, will throw in some new challenges and keep the teams honest. We hope to see lots of Sunrise Rotarians involved in the competition, whether participating in a corporate team or volunteering as a judge/scorer. The KPMG team were the worthy 2014 Champions – will they successfully defend their title next month?
District Governor Felix Stubbs and First Lady Carla Stubbs recently learned all about Sunrise’s literacy plans for the year during their visit, and expressed a special interest in the concept of the Scrabble Scrum competition. A number of schools in Jamaica have Scrabble groups and First Lady Carla was keen to see if a Scrabble Scrum competition would take-off there. Sunrise’s Literacy Committee hopes to assist its fellow Rotarians in Jamaica to host their first inter-school Scrabble Scrum competition this year. LIFE also hopes to host its second Inter-High School Scrabble Scrum competition in March 2016.
This year, alongside the annual District 7020 Butterfly Storybook Competition, the Buy-A-Kid-A-Book fundraiser, and the annual joint-Club Fred Speirs Interschool Debate Competition, the Rotary Sunrise Literacy Committee will be ‘adopting’ Bodden Town Primary School’s library for the year. We will assist the school with organising the library books, doing volunteer readings for the students and donating books, bean-bags and other items to improve the library environment.
It’s going to be a fun and busy year for the Sunrise Literacy Committee! All Club members are encouraged to get involved – please contact Literacy Director Su Mander for further information. You can also visit LIFE’s website www.life.org.ky for information about their literacy programmes.
We are proud of our members and we want our members to be proud of being a Rotarian. One way to show your pride for Rotary Sunrise is to bring a guest to our club meetings and share our club’s events and successes with friends, family and colleagues. But there is another way, as many of our members joined Rotary Sunrise for the networking opportunities why not show your Rotarian pride by adding your volunteer experience with Rotary Sunrise to your LinkedIn social networking account. If you have a professional LinkedIn account you can share the fact you are a Rotarian by adding volunteer experience to your profile. If you don’t have a LinkedIn profile then consider setting one up today, it’s free and allows you to connect your professional connections that will likely include many Rotary members.
Be proud of your membership status, not only during Membership month but always, and show your professional network that you are Rotarian and have been for many years in different roles. Not only will your profile get more positive activity but it may also encourage one of your connections to reach out to you as a potential Sunrise member. To learn more about LinkedIn visit https://www.linkedin.com.
I was born and raised in Hong Kong and still miss my Sunday dim sum brunches! I was lucky to have a very culturally-diverse childhood which included many trips to Sri Lanka to visit family. I moved to England in 1996 to read Law at Oxford University (Exeter College). I went on to train and qualify as a Solicitor in London and worked in firms in London and Oxfordshire for ten years before relocating to the Caribbean with my husband, Henry.
As a nature-lover, I was awestruck by the endangered Cayman Blue Iguana when I arrived in the Cayman Islands and I soon became a regular volunteer at the National Trust’s Blue Iguana Rescue Program. In June 2013, I started volunteering for LIFE (Literacy is for Everyone), Cayman’s literacy charity founded by a group of Sunrise Rotarians. I discovered my passion for literacy and education through working in the local schools for LIFE, and am now part-way through a Masters degree in Education Management through London University. I am very pleased to be serving as the Literacy Director for our Club this year.
I am the third dedicated Rotarian in the Mander family. My father-in-law, David Mander, is a Paul Harris Fellow and a founding member and Past President of the Rotary Club of Bristol Breakfast in England. My sister-in-law, Lisette Mander, is the Secretary of the Rotary Club of Bloemendaal in The Netherlands. I look forward to continuing the Mander-family tradition and serving our friendly breakfast club in the Cayman Islands!
(Photo credit: Rotarian John Lee)
Meeting Make-Up Information
Make-ups: In addition to make-up opportunities at Rotary Sunrise, you can make up absences at another Club in Grand Cayman. The meeting times and places for the other Clubs are:
Rotary Club of Grand Cayman Central:
Tuesdays 7:30pm at Grand Old House
Rotaract Blue:
Wednesdays 6:00pm at Royal Palms Beach Club
Rotary Club of Grand Cayman:
Thursdays 12:30pm at George Town Yacht Club... a change in August.
Rotaract Club of Grand Cayman: Thursdays 7:00am at Treats Cafe, West Shore Plaza
Rotary E-Club of the Caribbean 7020: Online meetings anytime. Visit the new e-club platform at
If members are unable to make a regular weekly meeting or Rotary event, make-ups can be done online. The e-Club website is open 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. You just need to spend a minimum of 30 minutes on the site and answer some questions to get the make up certificate.
Traveling: If you are going to be traveling for an extended period of time (more than two weeks), be sure to let the Secretary know and remember to submit any make-ups you do in a timely manner.
.jpg)
.jpeg)